USS Lexington (CV-2)

The USS Lexington (CV-2) was the second aircraft carrier built for and serving in the US Navy and the lead ship of her class. Commissioned as a carrier in December 1927, the "Lady Lex" was the fourth ship to bear the name of the American Revolution battle that took place in 1775.

Construction

The US Navy's first aircraft carriers were not designed as such; the first one had been converted from a coaling vessel. Lexington had originally been ordered in 1916 as a cruiser with a displacement of 38,746 tons. These plans were scaled back by the time her keel was laid at the Fore River Shipbuilding Company in Quincy, Massachusetts at the beginning of 1921.

As a result of the Washington Naval Treaty that prohibited the construction of new battleship fleets and limited the size of those that were built, Lexington was redesignated as a carrier. This reduced her mass by 8600 tons. At the time she was launched in October 1925, Lexington measured 888 feet in length with a beam of 106 feet, displacing 51,000 tons. She had sixteen boilers manufactured by Yarrow, powering four geared turbines with electric generators designed and constructed by General Electric; these in turn powered the propeller shafts. She was the first carrier to be equipped with elevators, and employed a flywheel catapult. With a crew compliment of 2,122 officers and seamen, she was able to carry up to 91 aircraft.

Repairs and Upgrades

Around 1931, Lexington became one of the first naval vessels to experiment with radio communications between the carrier and its planes. In 1940, she was among the fourteen vessels to be equipped with the RCA-CXAM RADAR system, enabling the detection of enemy aircraft at a range of approximately 76 miles.

In March April 1942, Lexington underwent a brief overhaul during which some of her armaments were replaced.

Wartime Service

Following her shakedown voyage, Lexington was assigned to San Pedro, California. In the years leading up to WWII, she carried out training along the West Coast in addition to battle exercises and annual fleet maneuvers in the Pacific and Caribbean.

On 7 December 1941, Lexington was en route from Pearl Harbor to Midway to deliver aircraft to the US base there when she received word of the attack. She returned to Pearl at the end of December.

For the next several days, Lexington patrolled the waters southwest of the Hawaiian Islands. She was ordered to the war zone in early January 1942. She arrived off New Britain, just east of New Guinea, a month later. After joint operations with Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) forces, she returned to Pearl Harbor for maintenance.

Lexington got underway in mid-April for the Coral Sea. Reporting to Task Force 17 on 1 May, the carrier, along with the USS Yorktown, moved into the area in response to Japanese movements that threatened to cut communications between Australia and New Zealand and the US.

In the ensuing battle that began a week later, Lexington was struck by two torpedoes below her waterline. The explosion ignited gasoline vapors. She went down eight hours later, taking 300 crewmen with her.

Asbestos Risk on the USS Lexington (CV-2)

Installing asbestos insulation in the construction of all vessels was ordered by Congress in the 1930s, after a deadly fire on a cruise ship resulted in great loss of life. As science proved conclusively that asbestos insulation was a major health risk for anyone breathing it, the USN began finding substitutes for the use of this substance in ships as well as shipyards, and by the 1980s asbestos was not commonly used. Lexington used asbestos frequently in ship's boilers and engineering compartments, and to insulate steam pipes all through the vessel.

When asbestos is worn or damaged it can become friable, meaning that individual fibers can be broken off and escape into the surrounding air, and then are breathed in by sailors and shipfitters, increasing the chances of contracting mesothelioma. The damage done by asbestos happens when very small fibers are breathed in or swallowed; they can invade the respiratory system and sometimes the stomach, leading to scarring in the case of pleural plaques and damage at the DNA level in the case of lung cancer and mesothelioma. Unfortunately, the survival rate in mesothelioma cases is not usually positive; generally mesothelioma disease patients live for around a year after diagnosis. Currently medical science has not developed a cure for mesothelioma, although researchers are always working on progressive treatment methods. Asbestos-caused cancers such as malignant mesothelioma are generally uncommon, and so mesothelioma clinics are also relatively uncommon.

If someone you know has been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, be advised that you have legal avenues available and finding a well-established mesothelioma lawyer can help you decide on a course of action. As accurate information about mesothelioma cancer is not always easy to obtain, we've produced a mesothelioma information packet with complete information about your legal and medical options, and a list of clinical trials that are underway nationwide. All you have to do is submit the form on this page and we will send you a packet at no cost to you.

Sources

Friedman, Norman. US Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1983)

Mooney, James. Dictionary of American Fighting Ships. (Washington DC; Department of the Navy, 1991).